LRO/LCROSS

LCROSS is NASA's Lunar CRater Observation and Sensing Satellite.
Its mission is to determine whether water ice exists in the lunar soil
in craters near the Moon's south pole, which it did by crashing
into the surface and producing a plume of lunar surface material.
Research telescopes on Earth were watching to analyze the content of
the plume.

LCROSS
was launched on July 18, 2009 along with the Lunar Reconnaissance
Orbiter (LRO) -A satellite that has been taking high-resolution pictures of
the lunar surface.

NASA Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Delivers Treasure Trove of Data

by Ken Kremer on March 15, 2011

LOLA
data give us three complementary views of the near side of the moon:
the topography (left) along with new maps of the surface slope values
(middle) and the roughness of the topography (right). All three views
are centered on the relatively young impact crater Tycho, with the
Orientale basin on the left side. The slope magnitude indicates the
steepness of terrain, while roughness indicates the presence of large
blocks, both of which are important for surface operations. Lunar
topography is the primary measurement being provided, while ancillary
datasets are steadily being filled in at the kilometer scale. Credit:
NASA/LRO/LOLA Science Team

NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance
Orbiter (LRO) has completed its initial phase of operations during the
exploration phase which lasted one year from Sept. 15, 2009 through
Sept. 15, 2010 and has now transitioned to the science phase which will
last for several more years depending on the funding available from
NASA, fuel reserves and spacecraft health. The exploration phase was in
support of NASA’s now cancelled Project Constellation

To mark
this occasion NASA released a new data set that includes an overlap of
the last data from the exploration phase and the initial measurements
from the follow on science mapping and observational phase.

This
is the fifth dataset released so far. All the data is accessible at the
Planetary Data System (PDS) and the LROC website and includes both the
raw data and high level processed information including mosaic maps and
images.

LRO was launched on June 18, 2009 atop an Atlas V/Centaur
rocket as part of a science satellite duo with NASA’s Lunar
Reconnaissance Orbiter & Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing
Satellite (LCROSS) from Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force
Station in Florida.

After achieving elliptical orbit, LRO
underwent a commissioning phase and the orbit was lowered with
thruster firings to an approximately circular mapping orbit at about 50
km altitude.

LRO
spacecraft (top) protected by gray colored blankets is equipped with 7
science instruments located at upper right side of spacecraft. Payload
fairing in background protects the spacecraft during launch and ascent.
Credit: Ken Kremer

LRO was equipped with 7 science instruments
that delivered more than 192 terabytes of data and with an unprecedented
level of detail. Over 41,000 DVDs would be required to hold the new LRO
data set.

“The release of such a comprehensive and rich collection of
data, maps and images reinforces the tremendous success we have had
with LRO in the Exploration Systems Mission Directorate and with lunar
science,” said Michael Wargo, chief lunar scientist of the Exploration
Systems Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington according
to a NASA statement.

The new data set includes a global map
produced by the onboard Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LROC) that
has a resolution of 100 meters. Working as an armchair astronaut,

anyone can zoom in to full resolution with any of the mosaics and go an
exploration mission in incredible detail because the mosaics are
humongous at

The
amount of data received so far from LRO equals the combined total of
all other NASA’s planetary missions. This is because the moon is nearby
and LRO has a dedicated ground station.

Topographic map from LRO data. Credit: NASA

Data
from the other LRO instruments is included in the release including
visual and infrared brightness, temperatures maps from Diviner;
locations of water-ice deposits from the Lyman-Alpha Mapping Project
(LAMP) especially in the permanently shadowed areas and new maps of
slope, roughness and illumination conditions from the Lunar Orbiter
Laser Altimeter team.

Additional new maps were generated from
data compilations from the Lunar Exploration Neutron Detector (LEND),
the Cosmic Ray Telescope for the Effects of Radiation and the Miniature
Radio Frequency (mini RF) instruments

The combined result of all this LRO data is to give scientists the best ever scientific view of the moon.

“All
these global maps and other data are available at a very high
resolution — that’s what makes this release exciting,” said Goddard’s
John Keller, the LRO deputy project scientist. “With this valuable
collection, researchers worldwide are getting the best view of the moon
they have ever had.”

Lunar Impact Uncovered More Than Just Moon Water

Oct. 21, 2010:
Nearly a year after announcing the discovery of water molecules on the
moon, scientists have revealed new data uncovered by NASA's Lunar CRater
Observation and Sensing Satellite, or LCROSS, and Lunar Reconnaissance
Orbiter, or LRO—and it's more than just water.

An artist's concept of LCROSS approaching the moon in Oct. 2009.
[more]

The missions found evidence that lunar soil within shadowy craters
is rich in useful materials. Moreover, the moon appears to be
chemically active and has a full-fledged water cycle. Scientists also
confirmed that 'moon water' was in the form of mostly pure ice crystals
in some places.

These results are featured in six papers published in the Oct. 22
issue of Science.

The twin impacts of LCROSS and a companion rocket stage in the
moon's Cabeus crater on Oct. 9, 2009, lifted a plume of material that
might not have seen direct sunlight for billions of years. As the plume
traveled nearly 10 miles above the crater’s rim, instruments aboard
LCROSS and LRO made observations of the crater and debris and vapor
clouds. After the impacts, grains of mostly pure water ice were lofted
into the sunlight in the vacuum of space.

"Seeing mostly pure water ice grains in the plume means water ice
was somehow delivered to the moon in the past, or chemical processes
have been causing ice to accumulate in large quantities," said Anthony
Colaprete, LCROSS project scientist and principal investigator at NASA's
Ames Research Center.

In addition to water, the plume contained "volatiles." These are
compounds that freeze in the cold lunar craters and vaporize easily when
warmed by the sun. The suite of LCROSS and LRO instruments determined
as much as 20 percent of the material kicked up by the LCROSS impact was
volatiles, including methane, ammonia, hydrogen gas, carbon dioxide and
carbon monoxide.

Above: A surface temperature map of the lunar south pole made by
LRO's Diviner Lunar Radiometer Experiment . The map contains several
intensely cold impact craters that could trap water ice and other icy
compounds commonly observed in comets. The approximate maximum
temperatures at which these compounds would be frozen in place for more
than a billion years are noted at right. [larger
image]

"The diversity and abundance of volatiles in the plume suggest a
variety of sources, like comets and asteroids, and an active water cycle
within the lunar shadows," says Colaprete.

The instruments also discovered relatively large amounts of light
metals such as sodium, mercury and possibly even silver. Scientists
believe the water and mix of volatiles that LCROSS and LRO detected
could be the remnants of a comet impact. According to scientists, these
volatile chemical by-products are also evidence of a cycle through which
water ice reacts with lunar soil grains.

LRO's Diviner instrument gathered data on water concentration and
temperature measurements, and LRO's Lunar Exploration Neutron Detector
mapped the distribution of hydrogen. This combined data led the science
team to conclude the water is not uniformly distributed within the
shadowed cold traps, but rather is in pockets, which may also lie
outside the shadowed regions.

The proportion of volatiles to water in the lunar soil indicates a
process called "cold grain chemistry" is taking place. Scientists also
theorize this process could take as long as hundreds of thousands of
years and may occur on other frigid, airless bodies such as asteroids;
the moons of Jupiter and Saturn (including Europa and Enceladus); Mars'
moons; interstellar dust grains floating around other stars and the
polar regions of Mercury.

"The observations by the suite of LRO and LCROSS instruments
demonstrate the moon has a complex environment that experiences
intriguing chemical processes," said Richard Vondrak, LRO project
scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. "This knowledge can
open doors to new areas of research and exploration."

By understanding the processes and environments that determine
where water ice will be, how water was delivered to the moon and its
active water cycle, future mission planners might be better able to
determine which locations will have easily-accessible water. The
existence of mostly pure water ice could mean future human explorers
won't have to devise complicated processes to retrieve water out of the
soil in order to use it for valuable life support resources. In
addition, an abundant presence of hydrogen gas, ammonia and methane
could be exploited to produce fuel.

"NASA has convincingly confirmed the presence of water ice and
characterized its patchy distribution in permanently shadowed regions of
the moon," concludes Michael Wargo, chief lunar scientist at NASA
Headquarters in Washington. "This major undertaking is the one of many
steps NASA has taken to better understand our solar system, its
resources, and its origin, evolution, and future."

LCROSS launched with LRO aboard an Atlas V rocket from
Cape Canaveral, Fla., on June 18, 2009, and used the Centaur upper stage
rocket to create the debris plume. The research was funded by NASA's
Exploration Systems Missions Directorate at the agency's headquarters.
LCROSS was managed by Ames and built by Northrop Grumman in Redondo
Beach, Calif. LRO was built and is managed by Goddard.

The
confirmation of scientists’ suspicions is welcome news to explorers who
might set up home on the lunar surface and to scientists who hope that
the water, in the form of ice accumulated over billions of years, holds
a record of the solar system’s history.

“We got more than just a whiff,” Peter H. Schultz, a professor of geological sciences at Brown University and a co-investigator of the mission, said in a telephone interview. “We practically tasted it with the impact.”

For more than a decade, planetary scientists have seen tantalizing hints of water ice at the bottom of these cold craters where the sun never shines.
The Lcross mission, intended to look for water, was made up of two
pieces — an empty rocket stage to slam into the floor of Cabeus,a
crater 60 miles wide and 2 miles deep, and a small spacecraft to
measure what was kicked up.

For space enthusiasts who stayed up,
or woke up early, to watch the impact on Oct. 9, the event was
anticlimactic, even disappointing, as they failed to see the
anticipated debris plume. Even some high-powered telescopes on Earth like the Palomar Observatory in California did not see anything.

The
National Aeronautics and Space Administration later said that Lcross
did indeed photograph a plume but that the live video stream was not
properly attuned to pick out the details.

The water findings came
through an analysis of the slight shifts in color after the impact,
showing telltale signs of water molecules that had absorbed specific
wavelengths of light. “We got good fits,” Dr. Colaprete said. “It was a
unique fit.”

The scientists also saw colors of ultraviolet
light associated with molecules of hydroxyl, consisting of one hydrogen
and one oxygen, presumably water molecules that had been broken apart
by the impact and then glowed like neon signs.

In addition,
there were squiggles in the data that indicated other molecules,
possibly carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide, methane or more complex
carbon-based molecules. “All of those are possibilities,” Dr. Colaprete
said, “but we really need to do the work to see which ones work best.”

Remaining
in perpetual darkness like other craters near the lunar poles, the
bottom of Cabeus is a frigid minus 365 degrees Fahrenheit, cold enough
that anything at the bottom of such craters never leaves. These craters
are “really like the dusty attic of the solar system,” said Michael
Wargo, the chief lunar scientist at NASA headquarters.

The Moon
was once thought to be dry. Then came hints of ice in the polar
craters. In September, scientists reported an unexpected finding that
most of the surface, not just the polar regions, might be covered with a thin veneer of water.

The LCROSS scientists said it was not clear how all the different readings of water related to one another, if at all.

The
deposits in the lunar craters may be as informative about the Moon as
ice cores from Earth’s polar regions are about the planet’s past
climates. Scientists want to know the source and history of whatever
water they find. It could have come from the impacts of comets, for
instance, or from within the Moon.

“Now that we know that water
is there, thanks to LCROSS, we can begin in earnest to go to this next
set of questions,” said Gregory T. Delory of the University of California, Berkeley.

Dr.
Delory said the findings of Lcross and other spacecraft were “painting
a really surprising new picture of the Moon; rather than a dead and
unchanging world, it could be in fact a very dynamic and interesting
one.”

Lunar ice, if bountiful, not only gives future settlers
something to drink, but could also be broken apart into oxygen and
hydrogen. Both are valuable as rocket fuel, and the oxygen would also
give astronauts air to breathe.

NASA’s current exploration plans
call for a return of astronauts to the Moon by 2020, for the first
visit since 1972. But a panel appointed in May recently concluded that
trimmings of the agency’s budget made that goal impossible. One option
presented to the Obama administration was to bypass Moon landings for
now and focus on long-duration missions in deep space.

Even
though the signs of water were clear and definitive, the Moon is far
from wet. The Cabeus soil could still turn out to be drier than that in
deserts on Earth. But Dr. Colaprete also said that he expected that the
26 gallons were a lower limit and that it was too early to estimate the
concentration of water in the soil.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ten Cool
Things Seen in the First Year of LRO

2010 JUNE 23

Having officially reached lunar orbit on June 23rd, 2009, the Lunar
Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) has now marked one full year on its mission
to scout the moon. Maps and datasets collected by LRO’s
state-of-the-art instruments will form the foundation for all future
lunar exploration plans, as well as be critical to scientists working to
better understand the moon and its environment. In only the first year
of the mission, LRO has gathered more digital information than any
previous planetary mission in history. To celebrate one year in orbit,
here are ten cool things already observed by LRO. Note that the stories
here are just a small sample of what the LRO team has released and
barely touch on the major scientific accomplishments of the mission. If
you like these, visit the official LRO web site at www.nasa.gov/LRO to find out even
more!

The Coldest Place in the Solar System
One of LRO''s observations from the past year goes beyond cool to
absolutely frigid. Diviner, LRO's temperature instrument, found a place
in the floor of the moon's Hermite Crater that was detected to be -415
degrees Fahrenheit (-248 Celsius) making it the coldest temperature
measured anywhere in the solar system. For comparison, scientists
believe that Pluto's surface only gets down to about -300 degrees
Fahrenheit (-184 Celsius). Extremely cold regions similar to the one in
Hermite Crater were found at the bottoms of several permanently shaded
craters at the lunar south pole and were measured in the depths of
winter night. Image Credit: NASA/Goddard/University of California, Los
Angeles› Larger image› Learn more about
the moon's coldest places

Astronauts' First Steps on the Moon
On July 20, 1969, NASA added a page to the history books when Apollo 11
astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were the first humans to set
foot on the moon. Though their stay was only brief, Armstrong and
Aldrin had about two and a half hours to track around outside the
module, taking pictures and deploying a few science experiments before
returning to orbit and ultimately, the safety of Earth. Images of the
Apollo 11 landing site from LRO clearly show where the descent stage
(about 12 feet in diameter) was left behind as well as the astronauts'
tracks and the various equipment they deployed. This LRO data has
important scientific value, as it provides context for the returned
Apollo samples. Beyond their use for science, the images of all six
manned landing sites observed by LRO provide a reminder of NASA's proud
legacy of exploration and a note of inspiration about what humans are
capable of in the future. Image Credit: NASA/Goddard/Arizona State
University› Larger image›
Learn more about the Apollo 11 landing site

The Apollo 14 Near Miss of Cone Crater
While all of the Apollo missions are fascinating, the Apollo 14
activities provided a particularly interesting story to see in the
images from LRO. The mission called for Alan Shepard and Edgar Mitchell
to go to Fra Maura where they would attempt to gather samples from the
rim of Cone Crater. Without having the aid of the lunar rover and
having to drag a cart full of scientific equipment along with them, the
trek from the descent module to Cone Crater proved to be a physically
intense one. After traversing nearly a mile (1400 meters), the steep
incline of the crater rim, the high heart rates of the astronauts and
the tight schedule of the activity resulted in mission control ordering
them to gather whatever samples they could and return to the landing
module. They never reached the edge of the crater. Though geologists
say it did not greatly affect the success of the scientific goal, the
astronauts were personally disappointed in failing to make it to the
top. Images from LRO now show precisely just how far the astronauts
traveled and how close they came to reaching the crater, their tracks
ending only about 100 feet (30 meters) from the rim! Image Credit:
NASA/Goddard/Arizona State University› Larger image›
Learn more about the Apollo 14 mission image

A Lost Russian Rover is Found
Lunokhod 1 was the name of a Russian robotic rover that landed on the
moon in 1970 and navigated about 6 miles (10 km) of the lunar surface
over 10 months before it lost contact in September 1971. Scientists
were unsure of the rover's whereabouts, though at least one team of
researchers were searching for it, hoping to bounce a laser off of its
retroreflector mirrors. This past March however, the LROC team announced
they had spotted it, miles from the location the laser team had been
searching. Using the info provided by LRO, a laser pulse was sent to
Lunokhod 1 and contact was made with the rover for the first time in
nearly four decades. Not only did Lunokhod 1's retroreflector return a
signal, but it returned one that was about five times better than those
that have routinely been returned by Lunokhod 2's mirrors over the
years. Image Credit: NASA/Goddard/Arizona State University› Larger image›
Learn more about the discovery of Lunokhod 1

The Lunar Far Side: The Side Never Seen from Earth
Tidal forces between the moon and the Earth have slowed the moon'
rotation so that one side of the moon always faces toward our planet.
Though sometimes improperly referred to as the "dark side of the moon,"
it should correctly be referred to as the "far side of the moon" since
it receives just as much sunlight as the side that faces us. The dark
side of the moon should refer to whatever hemisphere isn't lit at a
given time. Though several spacecraft have imaged the far side of the
moon since then, LRO is providing new details about the entire half of
the moon that is obscured from Earth. The lunar far side is rougher and
has many more craters than the near side, so quite a few of the most
fascinating lunar features are located there, including one of the
largest known impact craters in the solar system, the South Pole-Aitken
Basin. The image highlighted here shows the moon's topography from
LRO's LOLA instruments with the highest elevations up above 20,000 feet
in red and the lowest areas down below -20,000 feet in blue. Image
Credit: NASA/Goddard› Larger image›
Learn more about the far side of the moon

Counting Craters and Boulders
The LRO Camera (LROC) has a resolution about ten times better than any
previous lunar orbiter missions. That means for every pixel imaged by
other spacecraft, LROC gathers 100 pixels in that same area, enough to
distinguish details never before possible. One of the most striking
ways this manifests itself is in the ability to make out detailed
craters and individual boulders, some no larger than a few feet on the
lunar surface. In order to understand the history of the lunar surface
and its features and mechanisms, scientists look at the abundance, size,
shape, and distribution of both craters and boulders. By comparing and
analyzing these feature counts across different regions as well as
other places like the Earth and Mars, we can gain a better understanding
of our solar system's natural history. With the increased resolution
of the LRO Camera as well as the new information gathered by LRO's other
instruments, scientists can characterize the moon's surface in ways
never before possible. This information will be critical for both
science and future exploration plans. Not only that, but now thanks to
the "Moon Zoo" (http://www.moonzoo.org) the public can get involved
doing their own crater and boulder counts to aid in the research. With
hundreds of gigabytes of new data returning daily, the contribution of
"citizen scientists" can play a crucial part in lunar science. Image
Credit: NASA/Goddard/Arizona State University› Larger image›
Learn more about crater and boulder counting

Mountains on the Moon
On the Earth, we are taught that mountains form over millions of years,
the result of gradual shifting and colliding plates. On the moon
however, the situation is quite different. Even the largest lunar
mountains were formed in minutes or less as asteroids and comets slammed
into the surface at tremendous velocities, displacing and uplifting
enough crust to create peaks that easily rival those found on Earth. On
a few occasions in the past year, NASA has tilted the angle of LRO to
do calibrations and other tests. In such cases the camera has the
opportunity to gather oblique images of the lunar surface like the one
featured here of Cabeus Crater providing a dramatic view of the moon's
mountainous terrain. Cabeus Crater is located near the lunar south pole
and contains the site of the LCROSS mission's impact. Early
measurements by several instruments on LRO were used to guide the
decision to send LCROSS to Cabeus. During the LCROSS impact LRO was
carefully positioned to observe both the gas cloud generated in the
impact, as well as the heating at the impact site. Image Credit:
NASA/Goddard/Arizona State University› Larger image›
Learn more about mountains on the moon

Lunar Rilles: Mysterious Channels on the Moon
Rilles are long, narrow depressions on the lunar surface that look like
river channels. Some are straight, some curve, and others, like the
ones highlighted here, are called "sinuous" rilles and have strong
meanders that twist and turn across the moon. Rilles are especially
visible in radar imagery, like that gathered by LRO's Mini-RF
instrument. The formation of lunar rilles is not well understood. It
is believed there may be many different formation mechanisms including
ancient magma flows and the collapse of subterranean lava tubes.
Imagery from LRO will help researchers to better understand these
mysterious "river-like" lunar features. Image Credit: NASA/JHUAPL/LSI› Larger image›
Learn more about lunar rilles

Lunar Pits
LRO has now collected the most detailed images yet of at least two lunar
pits, quite literally giant holes in the moon. Scientists believe these
holes are actually skylights that form when the ceiling of a
subterranean lava tube collapses, possibly due to a meteorite impact
punching its way through. One of these skylights, the Marius Hills pit,
was observed multiple times by the Japanese SELENE/Kaguya research team.
With a diameter of about 213 feet (65 meters) and an estimated depth
of 260 to 290 feet (80 to 88 meters) it's a pit big enough to fit the
White House completely inside. The image featured here is the Mare
Ingenii pit. This hole is almost twice the size of the one in the Marius
Hills and most surprisingly is found in an area with relatively few
volcanic features. Image Credit: NASA/Goddard/Arizona State University› Larger image›
Learn more about the lunar pits

Areas of Near Constant Sunlight at the South Pole
One of the most vital resources LRO is searching for on the moon is
solar illumination. Light from the sun provides both warmth and a
source of energy, two critical constraints to exploration efforts. The
moon's axis is only slightly tilted so there are areas in high
elevations at its poles that remain almost constantly exposed to the
sun. Using LRO's precise measurements of topography scientists have
been able to map illumination in detail, finding some areas with up to
96% solar visibility. Such sites would have continuous sun for
approximately 243 days a year and never have a period of total darkness
for more than 24 hours. Image Credit: NASA/Goddard› Larger image

Explanation:
This Mid-Infrared Image was taken in the last minutes of the
LCROSS flight mission to the Moon.
The small white spot (enlarged in the insets) seen
within the dark shadow of lunar crater walls
is the initial flash created by the
impact of a spent Centaur upper stage rocket.
Traveling at 1.5 miles per second, the Centaur rocket
hit the lunar surface
yesterday at 7:31AM EDT followed four minutes later by the
shepherding
LCROSS spacecraft.
Earthbound observatories have reported capturing both impacts.
But before crashing into the
lunar surface itself,
the LCROSS spacecraft's instrumentation successfully recorded close-up
the details of the rocket stage impact, the resulting crater, and
debris cloud.
In the coming weeks, data from the challenging mission will be
used to search for
signs of water in the lunar material blasted
from the surface.

LUNAR IMPACT PLUME:
There was a plume after all. Observers on
Earth had their doubts after LCROSS and its Centaur booster
rocket hit the Moon on Friday, Oct. 9th. The twin lunar impacts
failed to produce visible plumes of debris, prompting speculation
that something had gone wrong. On the contrary, members of
the LCROSS science team are now calling the experiment "a
smashing success." (The lunar terrain is overexposed to properly show the much fainter impact plume.)

Fifteen seconds after the Centaur hit the shadowy floor of
crater Cabeus, the LCROSS spacecraft flying 600 km overhead
took the following picture of a plume measuring 6 to 8 km
wide:

"There is a clear indication of a plume
of vapor and fine debris," says LCROSS principal investigator
Tony Colaprete of NASA/Ames. "The ejecta brightness appears
to be at the low end of our predictions and this may be a
clue to the properties of the material the Centaur hit."

Nine cameras and spectrometers on LCROSS captured
every phase of the Centaur's impact: the
intial flash, the debris plume, and the creation of the
Centaur's crater. "We are blown away by the data
returned," says Colaprete. "The team is working
hard on the analysis and the data appear to be of very high
quality."

But did the impact reveal any water at the bottom
of Cabeus? The LCROSS team isn't ready to say yet. Combining
their data with those of other observatories and analyzing
the full dataset could take weeks. According to NASA, "any
new information will undergo the normal scientific review
process and will be released as soon as it is available."

LUNAR IMPACT:
NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) has pinpointed the wreckage
of a spacecraft that crashed into the Moon. No, the photo below wasn't caused by LCROSS,which hit the floor of crater Cabeus last week. This crash
site is much older:

Thirty-eight and a half years old, to be exact. The crater
pictured above was formed on February 4, 1971, by the impact of Apollo 14's
Saturn IVB booster rocket. NASA intentionally guided the rocket
into the lunar surface to provide a signal for seismometers
deployed by Apollo astronauts. The experiment yielded new
information about the Moon's interior structure.

Over the years, NASA and other international space agencies
have peppered
the Moon with dozens of spacecraft--usually on purpose,
although not always--and by doing so gained considerable experience
with the results of lunar impacts. Researchers tapped into
that experience when they predicted
bright flashes and debris plumes for the crash of LCROSS.
Imagine their surprise when the flashes and plumes failed
to materialize! To the human eye, LCROSS and its Centaur booster
rocket simply disappeared into the inky depths of Cabeus with
no obvious evidence of impact.

The solution to this mystery probably lies in data beamed
back to Earth by LCROSS in the last minutes before impact.
Scientists are crunching the numbers, and it may be days or
weeks before results are known. Stay tuned.

MOFFETT
FIELD, Calif. -- NASA's Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite,
or LCROSS, created twin impacts on the moon's surface early Friday in a
search for water ice. Scientists will analyze data from the
spacecraft's instruments to assess whether water ice is present.

The satellite traveled 5.6 million miles during an historic 113-day
mission that ended in the Cabeus crater, a permanently shadowed region
near the moon's south pole. The spacecraft was launched June 18 as a
companion mission to the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter from NASA's
Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

"The LCROSS science
instruments worked exceedingly well and returned a wealth of data that
will greatly improve our understanding of our closest celestial
neighbor," said Anthony Colaprete, LCROSS principal investigator and
project scientist at NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field,
Calif. "The team is excited to dive into data."

In
preparation for impact, LCROSS and its spent Centaur upper stage rocket
separated about 54,000 miles above the surface of the moon on Thursday
at approximately 6:50 p.m. PDT.

Moving at a speed of more
than 1.5 miles per second, the Centaur hit the lunar surface shortly
after 4:31 a.m. Oct. 9, creating an impact that instruments aboard
LCROSS observed for approximately four minutes. LCROSS then impacted
the surface at approximately 4:36 a.m PDT.

"This is a great day
for science and exploration," said Doug Cooke, associate administrator
for the Exploration Systems Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in
Washington. "The LCROSS data should prove to be an impressive addition
to the tremendous leaps in knowledge about the moon that have been
achieved in recent weeks. I want to congratulate the LCROSS team for
their tremendous achievement in development of this low cost spacecraft
and for their perseverance through a number of difficult technical and
operational challenges."‪

Other observatories reported
capturing both impacts. The data will be shared with the LCROSS science
team for analysis. The LCROSS team expects it to take several weeks of
analysis before it can make a definitive assessment of the presence or
absence of water ice.

"I am very proud of the success of this
LCROSS mission team," said Daniel Andrews, LCROSS project manager at
Ames. "Whenever this team would hit a roadblock, it conceived a clever
work-around allowing us to push forward with a successful mission."

The images and video collected by the amateur astronomer community and
the public also will be used to enhance our knowledge about the moon.

"One of the early goals of the mission was to get as many people to
look at the LCROSS impacts in as many ways possible, and we succeeded,"
said Jennifer Heldmann, Ames' coordinator of the LCROSS observation
campaign. "The amount of corroborated information that can be pulled
out of this one event is fascinating."

"It has been an
incredible journey since LCROSS was selected in April 2006," said
Andrews. "The LCROSS Project faced a very ambitious schedule and an
uncommonly small budget for a mission of this size. LCROSS could be a
model for how small robotic missions are executed. This is truly big
science on a small budget."

For more information about the LCROSS mission, including images and video, visit:

LCROSS is NASA's Lunar CRater Observation and Sensing Satellite.
Its mission is to determine whether water ice exists in the lunar soil
in craters near the Moon's south pole, which it did by crashing
into the surface and producing a plume of lunar surface material.
Research telescopes on Earth were watching to analyze the content of
the plume.

LCROSS
was launched on July 18, 2009 along with the Lunar Reconnaissance
Orbiter, a satellite that has been taking high-resolution pictures of
the lunar surface.

Why is the Moon's south pole so important?

Remember
that a day on the Moon—the time it takes the Moon to rotate once, or
the time between two sunrises on the Moon—is as long as a month on
Earth. Most parts of the Moon's surface get a couple of weeks of
sunlight followed by a couple of weeks of darkness. Ice just can't form
on most of the Moon's surface, because of the long, intense periods of
unfiltered sunlight that would vaporize it.

Because
the Moon has very little tilt with respect to the Sun, it doesn't have
seasons the way the Earth does. If you could stand at one of the Moon's
poles, the Sun would skim along the horizon, never rising more than a
few degrees. If you were standing in a crater at one of the poles, you
would never see any light at all, just like the bottom of a well only
gets sunlight when the Sun is high overhead.

Open this file
in Starry Night to see how the Sun almost never rises when you're
standing at the Moon's south pole. Try skipping time ahead one month at
a time. The landscape is made translucent so that you can see the Sun
behind it. Pay special attention to the line white line marked "Horizon
Line" (the true horizon, 90 degrees from the zenith) and the green line
marked "Ecliptic" (the path of the Sun in the sky).

It's
estimated that about 12,500 square kilometres (almost 5,000 square
miles) of the Moon's surface is permanently shadowed like this. These
are the only places on the Moon where ice could exist, so that's where
LCROSS is going to look. The crater chosen as the impact site is called
Cabeus. The Cabeus crater complex can be seen on the map below, marked
in blue. This is what the Moon looked like on October 9. The blue label at thebottom of the picture (near the South Pole) is labelled CABEUS-the crater chosen for the impacts.

Explanation:
About 100 kilometers from the Moon's South Pole, 100 kilometer wide
crater Cabeus is the target for two
LCROSS
mission spacecraft on course to impact the Moon tomorrow.
The shadowed crater is strongly
foreshortened in this mosaic, a
representative view of the region for earthbound telescopes.
The impacts are intended to
create billowing debris plumes
extending into the sunlight above the crater walls, that could
reveal signs of water.
First to impact will be the mission's Centaur upper stage
rocket at 11:30 UT (7:30am EDT).
The instrumented LCROSS mothership will image the impact and then
fly through the resulting debris plume analyzing the material blasted
from the crater floor.
Four minutes after the first impact, the LCROSS mothership
itself will crash into Cabeus.
The plumes are expected to be visible in telescopes about 10 inches in
diameter or larger, with the timing
favoring Moon watchers
in western North America and the Pacific.
NASA also plans to broadcast live footage from the LCROSS mission
on NASA TV
starting at 6:15am EDT / 3:15am PDT on Oct 9.

ESA's SMART-1 team has released an image of the future impact site of NASA’s LunarCrater
Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS). The SMART-1 team searched
through their database to find images of Cabeus A, where LCROSS will
search for water ice by making two impacts into this crater at the
lunar south pole. The impacts are scheduled for 11:30 and 11:34 am UT
on 9 October 2009. This image was taken four years ago by SMART-1, a
spacecraft that ended its mission in 2006 by deliberately crashing to the Moon,
similar to what LCROSS will do, hoping to exhume materials buried under
the lunar surface, particularly water ice. "This is like gathering
evidence for a Crash Scene Investigation, but before the action takes
place,” said Bernard Foing, SMART-1 project scientist.

Cabeus A is permanently shadowed, so ice lying inside the crater could be protected from the Sun’s
harsh rays. LCROSS will send the upper stage Centaur rocket crashing
into Cabeus A and a shepherd spacecraft will fly into the plume of dust
generated and measure its properties before making a second impact with
the lunar surface. Astronomers will observe both impacts using ground
and space-based telescopes.The SMART-1 spacecraft also concluded its mission with a controlled
bouncing impact on 3 September 2006. The event was observed with
ground-based telescopes and the flash from the impact was detected at infrared wavelengths.

Foing and Bjoern Grieger, the liaison scientist for SMART-1’s AIMIE
camera searched through SMART-1’s database for images of Cabeus A,
taken four years ago at conditions where solar elevation and direction
were similar to those of LCROSS impact. The SMART-1 image is at high
resolution as the spacecraft was at its closest distance of 500 km from
the South Pole.

“We are pleased to contribute these ESA SMART-1 observations of the
LCROSS target site in order to help in the planning and interpretation
of impact observations," said Foing. “The coordination and exchange of
information between lunar missions is an important step for future
exploration of the Moon.
Cooperation is vital if we are ever to see ‘villages’ of robotic
landers and eventual lunar bases, as recommended by the International
Lunar Exploration Working Group.”

On October 9, 2009, at 7:31 a.m. EDT professional and amateur astronomers alike will be focusing their telescopes
on the south pole of the Moon, hoping to see a little fireworks. Or
more accurately, they are hoping to see ice. NASA will be sending the
upper stage of a Centaur rocket to impact a permanently shadowed
crater, along with the Lunar
Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite, or LCROSS which will fly into
the plume of dust left by the impact and measure the properties of the
dust to look for water ice hidden inside the crater.
LCROSS will collide with the lunar surface. Team scientists have been
debating what crater would be the optimal location for the impact, and
today they made their announcement: Cabeus A.

And just to clarify, the spacecraft will impact the Moon, NOT bomb it. No detonations involved.

The LCROSS team selected Cabeus A based on a set of conditions that
include proper debris plume illumination for visibility from Earth,
a high concentration of hydrogen, and mature crater features such as a
flat floor, gentle slopes and the absence of large boulders.

"The selection of Cabeus A was a result of a vigorous debate within
the lunar science community that included review of the latest data
from Earth-based observatories and our fellow lunar missions Kaguya,
Chandrayaan-1, and the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter," said Anthony
Colaprete, LCROSS project scientist and principle investigator at
NASA’s Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif. "The team is
looking forward to the impacts and the wealth of information this
unique mission will produce."

Close up image depicting the slopes or steepness of the walls in Cabeus A. Credit: NASA

"LCROSS will shepherd the Centaur to the precise orbit,
and accelerate it into the moon," said LCROSS project scientist Tony
Colaprete. "The two will separate, with LCROSS following the Centaur by
four minutes, taking live "bent pipe" measurements, sending back live
video (which will be shown live via webcast) taking measurements of the
lunar regolith
characteristics, looking for lunar water vapor or ice characteristics,
then impacting the lunar surface itself. LCROSS will be a smashing
success."

Observatories involved the observing campaign include the InfraredTelescope
Facility and Keck telescope in Hawaii; the Magdalena Ridge and Apache
Ridge Observatories in New Mexico and the MMT Observatory in Arizona;
the newly refurbished Hubble Space Telescope; and the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, among others.

"These and several other telescopes participating in the LCROSS
Observation Campaign will provide observations from different vantage
points using different types of measurement techniques," said Jennifer
Heldmann, lead for the LCROSS Observation Campaign at Ames. "These
multiple observations will complement the LCROSS spacecraft data to
help determine whether or not water ice exists in Cabeus A."

Andrews also announced the dedication of the LCROSS mission to the
memory of legendary news anchor, Walter Cronkite, who provided coverage
of NASA's missions from the beginning of America's manned space program
to the age of the space shuttle.

The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) is a robotic spacecraft launched by NASA, currently orbiting the Moon.[1] The unmanned launch of the Lunar Precursor Robotic Program occurred on June 18, 2009, the first United States mission to the Moon in over ten years.[2][3][4][5] LRO is the first mission of the United States's Vision for Space Exploration
program. To successfully attain the goals of "The Vision", including
human exploration of the Moon, LRO will orbit the Moon, survey lunar
resources, and identify possible landing sites. The orbiting probe will be able to provide a 3-D map of the Moon's surface [4] and has provided some of the first images of Apollo equipment left on the Moon.[6][7] The LRO Atlas V launch vehicle also carries the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS),
which is designed to detect water liberated when the launch vehicle's
spent upper stage strikes a lunar crater. Together, LCROSS and LRO form
the vanguard of the NASA Lunar Precursor Robotic Program's return to the Moon.[8]

The first images taken by the LRO were published on the July 2,
2009, aimed at the region in the lunar highlands south of Mare Nubium
(Sea of Clouds). [9]On July 17, 2009 some images of the Apollo landing sites were released. SEE BELOW.

Contents

Mission

Developed at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, LRO is a large and sophisticated spacecraft planned to fly in a lunar polar orbit for a nominal mission of one Earth year.
An optional extended phase of the mission (up to five years) could
provide a communications relay for other future ground lunar missions,
such as a Moon lander or rover.

Launch was originally planned for October 2008. A later launch date
was scheduled for June 17, 2009. The actual launch took place one day
later, on June 18. The one day delay was to allow the Space Shuttle Endeavour a chance to lift off following a hydrogen fuel leak that canceled an earlier planned shuttle launch.

The lunar polar regions, including possible water ice
deposits and the lighting environment. The lunar polar regions
experience temperatures of −223°C (−370°F) and may be able to hold
water ice.[13]

High-resolution mapping (max 0.5 m) to assist in the selection and
characterization of future landing sites "identify the ups and downs on
the Moon, but also the slopes that are so critical to being able to
land safely," said Mike Wargo, chief lunar scientist for NASA's
exploration division.[14]

In addition, LRO has provided some of the first images of leftover Apollo equipment on the Moon.[6] The $583
million space mission comes equipped with a $504 million state of the
art 4,200 pound (1,905 kg) LRO space probe and a $79 million LCROSS
satellite.[15]

Onboard instruments

Onboard instruments

LRO during testing at NASA

The orbiter carries a complement of six instruments and one technology demonstration:

CRaTER—The primary goal of the Cosmic Ray Telescope for the Effects of Radiation is to characterize the global lunar radiation environment and its biological impacts.[16]

LROC—The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera has been designed to address the measurement requirements of landing site certification and polar illumination.[20]
LROC comprises a pair of narrow-angle cameras (NAC) and a single
wide-angle camera (WAC). LROC will fly several times over the historic Apollolunar landingsites; with the camera's high resolution, the lunar rovers and Lunar Module
descent stages and their respective shadows will be clearly visible. It
is expected that this photography will boost public acknowledgement of
the validity of the landings, and further discredit Apollo conspiracy theories.[21]

LRO's high-resolution mapping will show some of the larger pieces of equipment previously left on the Moon, and will return approximately 70–100 TB of image data.

The LRO will overfly everything that has ever landed on the Moon at
31 miles (50 km) altitude. It is hoped that new imagery of the Apollo 11 landing site will be taken in time for the 40th anniversary of the first human Moon landing.[citation needed]

Names to the Moon

The microchip panel containing 1.6 million names

Prior to the LRO's launch, NASA
gave members of the public the opportunity to have their names placed
in a microchip on the LRO. The deadline for this opportunity was July
31, 2008.[23] About 1.6 million names were submitted.[24]Planetary Society. "Everyone who sends their name to the Moon, like I'm doing, becomes part of the next wave of lunar explorers," said Cathy Peddie, deputy project manager for LRO at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center.
"The LRO mission is the first step in NASA's plans to return humans to
the moon by 2020, and your name can reach there first. How cool is
that?"

Accordingly, numerous names that were submitted were celebrities and
politicians. NASA has not released a complete list of names that were
placed on the microchip IT Wired.
Mystery has surrounded exactly who submitted their name to the moon.
Phone calls have been placed to NASA requesting they release all of the
names placed of the Space Ship Microschip, so the public can give their
input 1 Million Names and Counting.

The Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) was a robotic spacecraft operated by NASA. The main LCROSS mission objective was to explore the presence of water ice in a permanently shadowed crater near a lunar polar region.[2] It was successful in discovering water in the southern lunar crater Cabeus.[3]

LCROSS was designed to watch as the launch vehicle's spent Centaur upper stage, with a nominal impact mass of 2,305 kg (5,081 lb), struck the crater Cabeus[5] near the south pole of the Moon. LCROSS suffered a malfunction on August 22, depleting half of its fuel and leaving very little fuel margin in the spacecraft.[6] Impact occurred successfully on October 9, 2009, at 11:31 UTC.

Mission

LCROSS was a fast-track, low-cost companion mission to the LRO. The LCROSS payload was added after NASA moved the LRO from the Delta II to a larger launch vehicle. It was chosen from 19 other proposals.[7] LCROSS's mission was dedicated to late American broadcaster Walter Cronkite.[8]

Early in the morning on August 22, 2009, LCROSS ground controllers
discovered an anomaly caused by a sensor problem, which had resulted in
the spacecraft burning through 140 kilograms (309 pounds) of fuel, more
than half of the fuel remaining at the time. According to Dan Andrews,
the LCROSS project manager, "Our estimates now are if we pretty much
baseline the mission, meaning just accomplish the things that we have
to [do] to get the job done with full mission success, we're still in
the black on propellant, but not by a lot."[6]

The LCROSS Trajectory

Lunar impacts, after approximately three orbits, occurred on October 9, 2009, with the Centaur crashing into the Moon at 11:31 UTC and the Shepherding Spacecraft following a few minutes later.[11] The mission team initially announced that Cabeus A would be the target crater for the LCROSS dual impacts,[12] but later refined the target to be the larger, main Cabeus crater.[13]

On its final approach to the Moon, the Shepherding Spacecraft and Centaur separated Oct. 8, 2009, at 21:50 EDT.[14]
The Centaur upper stage acted as a heavy impactor to create a debris
plume that rose above the lunar surface. Following four minutes after
impact of the Centaur upper stage, the Shepherding Spacecraft flew
through this debris plume, collecting and relaying data back to Earth
before it struck the lunar surface to produce a second debris plume.
The impact velocity was projected to be over 9,000 km/h (5,600 mph);[15] at the time of the event, impact was calculated as over 10,000 km/h (6,200 mph).[8]

The Centaur impact was expected to excavate more than 350 metric tons (390 short tons)
of lunar material and create a crater about 20 m (65 ft) in diameter to
a depth of about 4 m (13 ft). The Shepherding Spacecraft impact was
projected to excavate an estimated 150 metric tons (170 short tons) and
create a crater 14 m (46 ft) in diameter to a depth of about 2 m
(6 ft). Most of the material in the Centaur debris plume was expected
to remain at (lunar) altitudes below 10 km (6 mi).[1]

It was hoped that spectral analysis of the resulting impact plume would help to confirm preliminary findings by the Clementine and Lunar Prospector missions which hinted that there may be water ice
in the permanently shadowed regions. Mission scientists expected that
the Centaur impact plume would be visible through amateur-class
telescopes with apertures as small as 25 to 30 cm (10 to 12 inches).[12]
But no plume was observed by such amateur telescopes. Even world class
telescopes such as the Palomar 200 inch telescope, equipped with
adaptive optics, did not detect the plume. The plume may have still
occurred but at a small scale not detectable from earth. Both impacts
were also monitored by Earth-based observatories and by orbital assets,
such as the Hubble Space Telescope.

Whether or not LCROSS finds water has been stated to be influential
in whether or not the United States government pursues creating a Moon base.[16] On November 13, 2009, NASA confirmed that water was detected after the Centaur impacted the crater.[3]

Spacecraft

The LCROSS mission took advantage of the structural capabilities of
the Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle Secondary Payload Adapter (ESPA)
ring[17]
used to attach LRO to the Centaur upper stage rocket. Mounted on the
outside of the ESPA were six panels that hold the spacecraft's science
payload, command and control systems, communications equipment,
batteries, and solar panels. A small monopropellant propulsion system
was mounted inside of the ring. Also attached were two S-Band omni
antennas and two medium-gain antennas. The mission's strict schedule,
mass, and budget constraints posed difficult challenges to engineering
teams from NASA Ames Research Center and Northrop Grumman. Their
creative thinking led to a unique use of the ESPA ring and innovative
sourcing of other spacecraft components. Usually, the ESPA ring is used
as a platform to hold six small deployable satellites; for LCROSS, it
became the backbone of the satellite, a first for the ring. LCROSS also
took advantage of commercially available instruments and used many of
the already-flight-verified components used on LRO.

LRO (top, silver) and LCROSS (bottom, gold) prepared for fairing

LCROSS is managed by NASA's Ames Research Center and was built by Northrop Grumman.
The LCROSS preliminary design review was completed on September 8,
2006. The LCROSS mission passed its Mission Confirmation Review on
February 2, 2007,[18] and its Critical Design Review on February 22, 2007.[19] After assembly and testing at Ames, the instrument payload, provided by Ecliptic Enterprises Corporation,[20] was shipped to Northrop Grumman on January 14, 2008, for integration with the spacecraft.[21] LCROSS passed its review on February 12, 2009.

Instruments

The LCROSS science instrument payload, provided by NASA's Ames Research Center,
consisted of a total of nine instruments: one visible, two near
infrared, and two mid-infrared cameras; one visible and two
near-infrared spectrometers; and a photometer. A data handling unit
(DHU) collected the information from each instrument for transmission
back to LCROSS Mission Control. Because of the schedule and budget
constraints, LCROSS took advantage of rugged, commercially available
components. The individual instruments went through a rigorous testing
cycle that simulated launch and flight conditions, identifying design
weaknesses and necessary modifications for use in space, at which point
the manufacturers were allowed to modify their designs.[1]

Results

The impact was not as visually prominent as had been anticipated.
Project manager Dan Andrews believed that this was due to pre-crash
simulations that exaggerated the plume's prominence. Because of data
bandwidth issues, the exposures were kept short, which made the plume
difficult to see in the images in the visible spectra. This resulted in
the need for image processing to increase clarity. The infrared camera
also captured a thermal signature of the booster's impact.[22]

Presence of Water

On 2009 November 13, NASA reported that multiple lines of evidence
show water was present in both the high angle vapor plume and the
ejecta curtain created by the LCROSS Centaur impact. The concentration
and distribution of water and other substances requires further
analysis.[3] Additional confirmation came from an emission in the ultraviolet spectrum that was attributed to hydroxyl fragments, a product from the break-up of water by sunlight.[3]

Imagery

One
of the first images from the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing
Satellite (LCROSS) using the visible light camera during the swingby of
the Moon. LCROSS has nine science instruments that collect different
types of data which are complementary to each other.

An
infrared camera image of the Moon taken with the Lunar Crater
Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) mid-infrared camera

Another visible light camera image of the Moon taken by the LCROSS spacecraft during lunar swingby

Image
taken of the Centaur upper stage impact in the Cabeus crater near the
south pole of the moon. The images were taken by the LCROSS shepherding
spacecraft.

Locations
of the Diviner LCROSS impact swaths overlain on a grayscale daytime
thermal map of the Moon’s south polar region. Diviner data were used to
help select the final LCROSS impact site inside Cabeus Crater, which
sampled an extremely cold region in permanent shadow that can serve as
an effective cold trap for water ice and other frozen volatiles.

Preliminary,
uncalibrated LRO/Diviner thermal maps of the Centaur/LCROSS impact site
acquired two hours before the impact, and 90 seconds after the impact.
The thermal signature of the impact was clearly detected in all four
Diviner thermal mapping channels.

As anticipated, NASA released images of the Apollo landing sites taken
by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO). The pictures show the Apollo
missions' lunar module descent stages sitting on the moon's
surface, as long shadows from a low sun angle make the modules'
locations evident. Also visible are the tracks left where the
astronauts walked repeatedly in a "high traffic zone" and perhaps by
the Modularized Equipment Transporter (MET) wheelbarrow-like carrier
used on Apollo 14. Wow.

As a journalist, I (most of the time) try to remain objective and calm. But there's only one response to these images: W00T!

Apollo 11 landing site as imaged by LRO. Credit: NASA

These
first images were taken between July 11 and 15, and the spacecraft is
not yet in its final mapping orbit. Future LROC images from these sites
will have two to three times greater resolution.

Apollo 15 site by LRO. Credit: NASA

These images are the first glimpses from LRO," said Michael Wargo,
chief lunar scientist, NASA Headquarters, Washington. "Things are only
going to get better."

The Japanese Kaguya spacecraft previously took images of some of the
Apollo landing sites, but not at a high enough resolution to show any
of the details of the lander or any other details. But here on these
images, the hardware is visible. "It's great to see the hardware on the
surface, waiting for us to return," said Mark Robinson, principal
investigator for LRO.

Robinson said the LROC team anxiously awaited each image. "We were
very interested in getting our first peek at the lunar module descent
stages just for the thrill — and to see how well the cameras had come
into focus. Indeed, the images are fantastic and so is the focus."

Apollo 16 by LRO. Credit: NASA

The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera, or LROC, was able to image
five of the six Apollo sites, with the remaining Apollo 12 site
expected to be photographed in the coming weeks.

The spacecraft's current elliptical orbit resulted in image
resolutions that were slightly different for each site but were all
around four feet per pixel. Because the deck of the descent stage is
about 12 feet in diameter, the Apollo relics themselves fill an area of
about nine pixels. However, because the sun
was low to the horizon when the images were made, even subtle
variations in topography create long shadows. Standing slightly more
than ten feet above the surface, each Apollo descent stage creates a
distinct shadow that fills roughly 20 pixels.

Apollo 17 LRO. Credit: NASA

The image of the Apollo 14 landing site had a particularly desirable
lighting condition that allowed visibility of additional details. The
Apollo Lunar Surface Experiment Package, a set of scientific
instruments placed by the astronauts at the landing site, is
discernable, as are the faint trails between the module and instrument
package left by the astronauts' footprints.